Geographical View Research Articles

Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry by James M. Rubenstein

Book Reviews131 even say "Michigan" takes on added meaning. John Sinclair, drugs, and antiwar protests signaled the collapse of society to Hayes. The University ofMichigan became the embodiment of everything he was against. Bo lived only for football and often seemed completely disengaged from the chaotic conditions around him. Even the student body's decision to convert a halftime homecoming celebration into an antiwar rally did not faze him. Bo wanted to beat Ohio State simply because theywere the perennial obstacle keeping Michigan from the Rose Bowl. As Rosenberg notes, "Bo Schembechler was one of the guys,Woody Hayes was never one of the guys" (p. 83). Rosenberg's novel prism creates bright new windows into the familiar story of Bo andWoody. His social-history approach makes for riveting reading. And forMichigan fans addled by Ohio State's recent dominance on the field, the book might serve as a reminder that the rivalrywas once very different. It might also remind them just how differentAmerica once was aswell. Scott Beekman University of Rio Grande James M. Rubenstein. Making and SellingCars: Innovationand Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. Pp. 401. Bibliography. Drawings. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paperback reissue, $35.00. That symbol of twentieth-century technology, the automobile, usually warrants a subsection in historical surveys or college courses, yet rarely is automotive history treated as a category unto itself. Instead, the history of the automobile is subdivided into specialties. Even largerworks on the subject tend toward the narrow, and holistic approaches to automotive history are generally presented as encyclopedias. Making and Selling Cars is that rare work thatmanages to create a coherent general review of the automobile. To some extent, Rubenstein's book resembles the pioneering works from the 1960s that first created "automotive history." Unlike other broad assessments, however, the author avoids chronologies and narratives. Although the book is limited primarily to theAmerican market, Making and Selling Cars achieves a larger view while presenting important details to support it. 132 MichiganHistoricalReview In exploring how automobiles are made and sold, Rubenstein addresses in one volume many of the great questions of automotive history that even more specialized studies often fail to discuss. For Rubenstein, Henry Ford's storymatters not because his innovations came first, but because they had such a broad, long-term influence. With excellent use of Ford-era primary sources, Rubenstein places the common stories of Ford and Highland Park into the fuller history of making and selling cars across the entire first century of the automobile's existence. The author's insight is achieved partially because he takes the geographer's view, tracking conditions and connections, not just actors and events. Even the most knowledgeable reader will benefit from Rubenstein's conjoining of perspectives in his exploration of both "making and selling" cars. Exploring how cars are "made" broadens the history beyond themajor industry players and emphasizes all of an automobile's parts and the complexities of joining them, including labor. And seeking to explain how cars are "sold" provides insight into the broader areas of distribution, marketing, advertising, consumerism, and the laws governing these processes. My quibbles are minimal. Although Rubenstein avoids social commentary, chapter endings tend toward unnecessary characterizations that while brief, are inconsistent with the author's larger approach. And Rubenstein treats politics rather flady, thereby missing some important influences upon industry and consumer choices and actions. Finally, since this book was first published in 2001 and intended as a millennial statement about the automobile, the first decade of the twenty-first century certainly has brought more than a few answers to questions raised by Rubenstein, and proven a few of his conclusions to be wrong. Nevertheless, the reissuing of this valuable book offers the reader of 2009 a fascinating opportunity to test the author's model. Rubenstein effectively compresses the first century of the automobile, seeing it as more alike than different. He leaves the reader with themajor questions testing the industry, seeing it as being at a crossroads where changes in direction are inevitable. The book offers a brilliant summation, and one hopes thatRubenstein may add, one day, a second volume on the automobile's first decade of...

The Portuguese Territory before Modern-day Portugal: Roots or Precedents? A Geo-Historical Reflection

Portugal's identity has given rise to numerous theories. For a long time, many of them have been continuist, founded notably on what was believed to be the 'ultima ratio' [last argument]: environmental factors. By considering that a territory like the Portuguese Kingdom around 1250, almost complete from a geographical point ol view, was the product of different systems (economical exchanges, links between local communities, political network) and one identity, we shall attempt to look back over many years and study the relationship between the shape of this territory and that of the units that preceded it since in the Roman provinces of Lusitania and Galicia. Is there continuity, repetition or coincidence? Putting aside the problem of borders as such (the crossing of extremely voluntarist limits at precise points), considering that their global (not detailed) outline was always imposed by strolig polarisation processes, we shall adopt a comparative approach to these prefigurations of Portugal.

Cognitive Task Analysis of Electric Power System Control Center Operations

A cognitive task analysis of reliability coordinators in an electric power system control center was performed in conjunction with evaluation of three novel display solutions for line overload detection and correction. Eight experienced regional operations center operators participated in the study. The operators were shown two different geographic data view displays and a tabular, text-based tool, and interviewed as they solved three different transmission line overload problems using the different displays and tools. The operators were asked to think aloud as they performed the tasks. Their comments were recorded and transcribed, and used as a basis for the cognitive task analysis. The results indicated that although the operators liked the system data visualization approaches, they also placed high value on tabular presentation of text-based and numerical data. Visualization solutions should therefore be used to supplement existing displays and tools. This study also serves as an example of a participatory design approach to development of novel visualization solutions for complex task environments.

ALGUMAS GEOGRAFIAS SOBRE A FRONTEIRA FRANCO-BRASILEIRA

The boarding area by along Oiapock River, between nowadays Amapá Brazilian State and French Guyana, was the stage of a long content litigious amid both countries. This article analyses some geographical views over the region. We began the text with the authority based on the scientific view over the space. By the way, we followed with the official speech of the Brazilian’s government presented to support his mission for colonization and occupation of the northern territory. By other hand, this last official speech was enfaced by popular testimonies of ancient inhabitants of the region, people more worried with their day-a-day survivor than any new expectative to belongs or notbelongs to a national state. We intend to riche this understanding with the speech wrote by Foucault on power and geography and, also, his heterotopy concept. Keyboards: imperialism, power, heterotopy, Amapá, French Guyana

The Boundaries of Israel—Palestine, Past, Present and Future: A Critical Geographical View

Palestine, Eretz-Israel, Israel, Terra Santa, The Holy Land, Philistines—all those names have been given to a stretch of land situated on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. This was, and still is, one of the most important pieces of land, which the world has been dealing with during the last two thousand years. The Arab-Israeli conflict, which has run for the last hundred years, is but the last in a series of long struggles, which dictate the history of that area. One of the main issues is the delimitation of Palestine, a process that began about 100 years ago but is far from complete. Understanding this process is the aim of this essay, which will present an historical review and an analytical view concerning the actors involved in the process and an overview dealing with the three eras of boundary making of Israel.

Indigenous Geography, GIS, and Land-Use Planning on the Bois Forte Reservation

The map is a primary tool in geographic research, and the discipline of geography has experienced a significant methodological transformation during the last three decades with the development and now near ubiquity of geographic information systems (GIS) technology. The introduction of this technology into Indian country has spurred a debate over the appropriateness and effectiveness of using GIS for Native mapping purposes. In this article, I review issues concerning the use of GIS in Native communities and present a case study of one particular tribe’s implementation of the technology. GIS are computer systems designed to store, manipulate, and portray spatial data, theoretically making analysis of such data easier, faster, and more powerful. However, many in the geographic community view GIS as a “contradictory technology that can both empower and marginalize people and communities.” 1 At the same time that broader debates about the social impacts of GIS, public-participation or community-based GIS, and GIS and society developed in urban geographic research, so did a more focused debate centered around GIS and Indigenous peoples. 2

Local dimensions of the dissolution of boundaries in labour – a geographical view of the cultural and media industries

This paper explores the geographical dimensions of changing work from a labour sociological per spective. Its diagnosis of transformation draws on two key debates: on the erosion of standard employment patterns and the dissolution of boundaries in labour (and life). The article first examines the concepts behind these debates, and then attempts to unravel two geographically informed dimensions inherent to them - labour mobility and the space-time organisation of everyday life - using empirical material from several studies of the cultural and media industries. It finally argues on a very general level that the emerging knowledge- and culture-based economy gives birth to a new rise of agglomeration economies, albeit in a socio-cultural rather than the classical sense. Agglomeration in this sense functions as both a compensation for and catalyst of changing work patterns.

The GIS-based SafeAirView software for the concentration assessment of radioactive pollutants after an accidental release

The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra (Italy) has long been running nuclear installations for research purposes. The Nuclear Decommissioning and Facilities Management Unit (NDFM) is responsible for the surveillance of radioactivity levels in nuclear emergency conditions. The NDFM Unit has commissioned the implementation of a specifically developed decision support system, which can be used for quick emergency evaluation in the case of hypothetical accident and for emergency exercises. The requisites were to be a user-friendly software, able to quickly calculate and display values of air and ground radioactive contamination in the complex area around JRC, following an accidental release of radioactive substances from a JRC nuclear research installation. The developed software, named "SafeAirView", is an advanced implementation of GIS technology applied to an existing MS-DOS mode dispersion model, SAFE_AIR (Simulation of Air pollution From Emissions_Above Inhomogeneous Regions). SAFE_AIR is a numerical model which simulates transport, diffusion, and deposition of airborne pollutants emitted in the low atmosphere above complex orography at both local and regional scale, under non-stationary and inhomogeneous emission and meteorological conditions. SafeAirView makes use of user-friendly MS-Windows type interface which drives the dispersion model by a sequential and continuous input-output process, allowing a real time simulation. The GIS environment allows a direct interaction with the territory elements in which the simulation takes place, using data for the JRC Ispra region represented in geo-referenced cartography. Furthermore it offers the possibility to relate concentrations with population distribution and other geo-referenced maps, in a geographic view. Output concentration and deposition patterns can be plotted and/or exported. In spite of the selected specific databases, the SafeAirView software architecture is a general structure, therefore the decision support system could be easily modified to be applied in a region different from the JRC one. Beside the description of SafeAirView, the present paper presents a statistical evaluation of the software, which has considered three well known tracer experiments: Copenhagen, Indianapolis and Kincaid. The data sets related to these experiments are all included in the so called Model Validation Kit.

Regional development and sources of superior performance across textile and IT sectors in Taiwan

The rapid growth and industrialization of Taiwan's textile and IT sectors, mainly comprised of small and medium-sized enterprises, has prompted an array of explanations among academics, including neoliberalism, structural-institutionalism, flying geese patterns, regional networks and economic geography. Drawing on neoliberal, structural-institutional, regional networking and economic geographic views in that strong Taiwanese entrepreneurial culture is important to its textile and IT sector development, this study shares their positive perspectives in influencing the sources of profitability differentials among Taiwan's textile and IT firms in international competitiveness. Researchers investigating the sources of performance differences among firms have focused mainly on the relative importance of industry and firm factors. Specifically, this study employs Taiwan's business database to examine industry and firm effects on profitability differentials in these sectors using return on assets and the economic performance measures of economic value added and market value added. A variance components model is proposed, and findings indicate that firm effects dominate performance while industry effects have little impact. Our discussion reconciles results with those of previous studies.

Europa Sacra: Raccolte agiografiche e identita politiche in Europa fra Medioevo ed Eta moderna (review)

Europa Sacra: Raccolte agiografiche e identita politiche in Europa fra Medioevo ed Eta moderna. Edited by Sofia Boesch Gajano and Raimondo Michetti. (Rome: Carocci Editore. 2002. Pp. 432. euro26.40 paperback.) The papers reproduced in this volume were originally presented at a symposium of the Associazione Italiana per lo studio dei Santi, dei Culti e delI'Agiografia (Italian Association for the Study of Sanctity, Cults, and Hagiography). The meeting was convened to discuss late-medieval and early-modern hagiographical collections and the role they played in the sanctification of states and territories. This volume consists of twenty-two essays and a foreword and introduction from the volume's co-editors Sofia Boesch Gajano and Raimondo Michetti. In total, it presents the research of twenty-six scholars in some 430 pages. Although the focus inevitably falls on Roman Catholicism, particularly on Italian Catholic Reformation works, the collection is also augmented with pieces on early-modern Protestantism and Orthodox Russia. The geographical limits of the study are quite broad, ranging from Ireland in the west to Central and Eastern Europe and to Calabria in the south. But while the geographical view is quite extensive, the chronological scope is relatively limited, with most of the papers being firmly fixed in the period of a little more than two hundred years between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. One advantage of this particular time-frame has been to illuminate the continuities that exist between the hagiographical traditions of the later Middle Ages and the work of Caesar Baronius and other great early-modern hagiographers, who have long been identified as major forces in the Catholic Reformation's reassessments of hagiography. As a result, the accomplishments of the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries now stand out, not so much in stark contrast to the earlier period, but as the logical continuation and extension of fifteenth-century change. Given the large group of scholars that participated in these meetings, one would not expect to find a common viewpoint in a conference proceedings of this nature. The book does not present a single, or even several points of view. Instead the collection shows a variety of perspectives on the problem of hagiography and its use as a force in and territorial sacralization in early-modern Europe. The wide-ranging approach is also mirrored in the volume's use of languages. Fourteen of the twenty-four papers are written in Italian, four each in English and French, one in German, and one in Spanish. Such inclusiveness, though,has an unhappy downside: this will likely be a collection used only by specialists. Those hoping to find a state of the art presentation of current issues in the study of hagiography will be disappointed. Instead the book is a bonanza for the expert who hopes to mine it for new approaches to the problems surrounding the late medieval and early-modern cult of the saints, for information about certain textual traditions, and for insights into the interrelated themes of hagiography and sacralization. To bring order to these pieces, the editors have arranged them into three sections. The first treats case studies in which hagiographical collections became a vehicle for elaborating upon the character of the late-medieval and earlymodern territorial as a Holy Land. The case studies here present examples from Irish, Belgian, Polish, Bavarian, Russian, Spanish, and Italian sources. For readers in the Anglo-American world, the contributions of Padraig O Riain on late sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century Ireland and that of Trevor Johnson on early-modern Bavaria may be of special interest. O Riain recounts the efforts of expatriate Irish scholars to collect and reconstruct the island's late-medieval hagiographical collections following the destructions of the country's monasteries as a result of English-sponsored dissolution. …

Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign (review)

Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign (review)

An Urban Monitor as support for a participative management of developing cities

Urban management is a complex process, which requires a sizeable information base and a large coordination between the actors who are managing the city. In developing countries, this management is made even more difficult by a lack of financial means and technical skills. For this reason among others, the classical instruments for planning are inefficient. Starting from this fact, this paper proposes a participative planning and management tool, developed through a concrete case study: the city of Thiès, in Senegal. Participation, individual capacities and coordination have been identified as key factors for improving the efficiency of the system of actors in charge of the urban management. Therefore, the proposed method focuses on information, communication and training. In parallel, an Urban Monitor (participative system of geographical information and indicators) has been developed and implemented, for an improvement of the information and communication structuring. This original approach allows combining the concepts of Research Action Training with participative methods and the new information and communication technologies. Based on a dynamic and geographical view of the urban planning, it integrates tools adapted to the contextual specificities. Through these original aspects, it opens great perspectives in the fields of participative urban management and the implementation of good governance.

Western Places, American Myths: How We Think about the West by Gary J. Hausladen

business recordsof earlyJapaneseAmerican and white settlers.The historical narrative ismade more compelling with theuse of insets thatfea ture related information.This organization al lows readers to follow the storylinein thenarra tive while reflecting on personal insightsand edi torialsalong the way. The details found infamily stories and business and personal documents make interestingreading.The anecdotes impart a rich feeling for theNikkei community in the White RiverValley. Shirakawa is illustrated with numerous pho tographs documenting early Japanese families, farms, businesses, associations, and community activities.Readers familiar with Nikkei commu nitieswill enjoy seeing these photos andmight recognize some names and faces. For many read ers interested in local history andAmerican his toryingeneral, the immigration story, and issues pertaining to civil rightsand civil liberties,this book will filla gap. Classroom teacherswill find Shirakawa helpful as a reference. Western Places, American Myths: How We Think about the West Edited by Gary J. Hausladen University of Nevada Press, Reno, 2003. Illustrations, photographs, maps. 360 pages. $49.95 cloth. Reviewed byMartha Henderson Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington Winner of the Wilbur S. Shepperson Humanities Book Award for2002,West ernPlaces, AmericanMyths isan engaging setof essays.The promise ofdefiningwestern bound aries and identities isa powerful yeast inAmeri can historical geography.Like amouth-watering campfiredessert, WesternPlaces,AmericanMyths could cap offa dusty day of separating the real from the mythicalWest. Unfortunately,when we get to thebottom of thepan,where a baker's real abilities are shown,we find thatthebottom layer of thisdessert isburned. Every essay iswell written and has a great deal to offerserious scholars ofwestern studies. The book isdivided intothreesections.Historical chapters include Paul F. Starrson the endurance of the ranch as theblueprint of the West, JohnB. Wright on land tenure,and LaryM. Dilsaver on the National Park System.Ethnic diversity is well documented inessaysbyRichard H. Jacksonon the Mormon West, TerrenceW. Haverluk on the Mexican American West, Akim D. Reinhardt on the indigenousWest, and Karen M. Morin on a woman's interpretation of thenineteenth-century West. Considering the West as a region of (mis placed) hope, Pauliina Raento investigateshis torical and contemporary gambling, PeterGoin gives us surreal photographs ofwestern places and people, andDydia DeLyser illustratestherole of ghost towns as historic and contemporary is lands ofpromise. Gary J. Hausladen adds to the examination of thefictional West with his chap teron western films. The concluding chapters returnreaders to idea thatbelief is more impor tant than evidence in the West. It is a delight to bite into each chapter.The knowledge base and intellectualcontribution tohistorical geography by eachwriter are filling.The chapters are excel lentexamples of theuse of the science of geogra phy to separatemythical from real, ifone be lieves such a thing ispossible. Three chapters begin an interestingconver sation aboutmyth. Goin's beautifully published color photographs superimposemultiple images in one frame to capture visions of reality.The photographs are an excellent example of theroles 6i4 OHQ vol. 104, no. 4 of imagined and real thatcombine tocreateviews of the West. Hausladen's chapter on the role of western films indescribing and forging western regionaland national identityincludesperceptive research and an excellent analysis of the role of myth inplace making. DeLyser begins a serious analysis of the significanceofmyth and geogra phyby statingthat"... the mythic West andwhat, for lack of a better term, we might call the 'real' (orhistoric)West have existednot separatelybut rather together,each one helping to create the other... ."(p.276-7). Unfortunately, the other authors add myth as a postscriptto their otherwiseexcellentresearch. There is littlethatexploresmyth,myth-making, ormythic thinkingabout a region or how they affectthenational perception of a region.One of thebest reviewsofhistoricalgeographypublished in recent years appears in the first chapter, "Un derstanding Western Places: The Historical Geographer's View," byWilliam Wyckoff. This excellent reviewarticle should be assigned to ev ery historian who has a taste for things geo graphic.Had thevolume been solely about his torical geography, this chapterwould be essen tial. What isneeded inthisvolume, however, isan equally fine reviewof thepower of myth increat ingplaces, spaces, and regions.Also missing isa concluding chapter thatprobes thecontributors' attempts todeconstruct theirtopics asmythical versions ofwestern regional identity. The book is incomplete without an analysisof theroleof myth in creating and sustainingwestern identityand regional boundaries inAmerican spatial con sciousness. Still, it iswell worth reading for the good...

Geographical View on the Regional Context of Causes of Death Documented in Church Registers

Geographical View on the Regional Context of Causes of Death Documented in Church Registers

Ninety-Eight Days: A Geographer's View of the Vicksburg Campaign

Grant's campaign against Vicksburg has been studied from a number of perspectives--but always with the outcome in the foreground. This documented history of the final phases of the Vicksburg Campaign, from March 29 through July 4, 1863, examines the actions of Union and Confederate commanders as they unfolded, reconstructing their decisions based only on what they knew at any given time. In meticulous detail, Warren E. Grabau describes the logistical situation at key junctures during the campaign and explains how and why those situations constrained the choices available to Grant and Confederate commander John C. Pemberton. Alternating between Confederate and Federal perspectives, he allows the reader to see the situation as the commanders did and then describes how the available information led to their decisions. Grabau examines not only topographic and hydrographic features but also strategic, political, economic, and demographic factors that influenced the commanders' thinking. He analyzes the effectiveness of the intelligence-gathering capabilities of each side, shows how the decisions of both commanders were affected by the presence of the Union Navy, and describes the impact of political philosophies and command structures on the conduct of the campaign. Through his detailed analysis, Grabau even suggests that Grant had no actual campaign plan but was instead a master opportunist, able to exploit every situation. Remarkably detailed maps reconstruct the terrain as it was at the time and show how incomplete data often resulted in poor military decisions. Other supportive material includes Command Structures of the Federal and Confederate Forces in diagrammatic form as they stood at the beginning of the ninety-eight days. Ninety-eight Days is a monumental work masterfully executed, a reconstruction of military reasoning that is more analytical than any previous study of Vicksburg. It contributes substantially to our understanding of those military operations and demonstrates how crucial geography is to the conduct of war.The Author: Warren E. Grabau is a retired geologist with a long interest in the Civil War. He is he coauthor of two earlier books: Evolution of Geomorphology; A Nation-by-Nation Summary of Development (with H. J. Walker) and The Battle of Jackson, May 14, 1863 (with Edwin C. Bearss).

The Fossil Record of Predator-Prey Arms Races: Coevolution and Escalation Hypotheses

Arms races between predators and prey may be driven by two related processes—escalation and coevolution. Escalation is enemy-driven evolution. In this top-down view of an arms race, the role of prey (with the exception of dangerous prey) is downplayed. In coevolution, two or more species change reciprocally in response to one another; prey are thought to drive the evolution of their predator, and vice versa. In the fossil record, the two processes are most reliably distinguished when the predator-prey system is viewed within the context of the other species that may influence the interaction, thus allowing for a relative ranking of the importance of selective agents. Detailed documentation of the natural history of living predator-prey systems is recommended in order to distinguish the processes in some fossil systems. A geographic view of species interactions and the processes driving their evolution may lead to a more diverse array of testable hypotheses on how predator-prey systems evolve and what constraints interactions impose on the evolution of organisms. Scale is important in evaluating the role of escalation and coevolution in the evolution of species interactions. If short-term reciprocal adaptation (via phenotypic plasticity or selection mosaics among populations) between predator and prey is a common process, then prey are likely to exert some selective pressure over their predators over the short term (on ecological time scales), but in the long run predators may still exert primary “top-down” control in directing evolution. On the scale of evolutionary time, predators of large effect likely control the overall directionality of evolution due to the inequalities of predator and prey in control of resources.

A Geographer's View

A Geographer's View

German Immigrants in Rural Southern Indiana: A Geographical View

German Immigrants in Rural Southern Indiana: A Geographical View

Was there geographical science in Sasanian Iran?

The study examines the extant Sasanian material relating to geographical knowledge, trying to answer the question whether Iranians of the Late Sasanian period possessed the notion of “geographical science” comparable to that of their Byzantine neighbours or their Islamic heirs. Geographical traditions found in several texts, both in Avestan and Pahlavi, are studied and compared, in order to reach the conclusions, whether the actual geographical knowledge was systematised. It appears that there was much diversity in geographical views in various periods of Sasanian history; the views on geography were generally geopolitically motivated; there was a gap between the learned traditions and real geographical knowledge; Sasanian geographical attitudes were characterised by Iranocentrism and little interest in real geography; Sasanian Iranians did not develop a geographical science, and much of what we are left with is rather geographical mythology.

Ninety-eight days: a geographer's view of the Vicksburg Campaign

Ninety-eight days: a geographer's view of the Vicksburg Campaign